Education for children is very important. In many occasions, excellent education is closely related to excellent facilities and thus high cost beyond the reach of the poor. On the other hand, availability of a tutor and books to answer questions on things that are not well understood can be very helpful. For that purpose, Universitas of Pelita Harapan (UPH) provides a simple library (taman bacaan), and a shelter for learning activities for kids in Bencongan neighbourhood, Tangerang, a suburb area 20 km away from Jakarta. The shelter is called Pos Belajar Dutasia (Dutasia Learning Post), run by The Dutasia Foundation. For the learning activities of the kids, UPH regularly send students as part of their service learning program to help the children. The learning post has been serving around 80 children of 5 to 12 years old from low-income families from the neighbourhood.

The Bencongan neighbourhood

The shelter, the solar panel, and the lighting provided by UPH

However, when evening comes, such activities have to stop as learning can’t be performed in darkness. For community service of this year, and in conjunction with the International Year of Light 2015 (IYL2015), Department of Electrical Engineering UPH managed to provide a solar-powered lighting system for the shelter, and handed it over to the foundation on 11 Dec. 2014.

The solar panel and its control box

The system was designed by Endrowednes Kuantama, a lecturer of UPH. During day time, a 50 Wp solar panel will collect energy from the sunlight, which is abundant in Indonesia, store the energy into a battery, and during evening, the battery will supply electrical power to 3 pieces of 5 Watts LED light bulbs which give sufficient light for the children to continue their learning activities and incidentally also for other community activities.

Now, the children are happy to get a better lighting system and the foundation does not need to worry on extra utility bill.

A child from the neighbourhood proudly showed her trophy of coloring competition. She is happy to get lesson from the Dutasia Learning Post.